Life and death

Published 8:00 pm, Saturday, May 8, 2004

The hospital has filed an application with the state Office of Health Care Access for the authority to provide emergency angioplasty, what's known as "elective" angioplasty and open-heart surgery.

The hearing will be from 1 to 7 p.m. in the hospital's Creasy Auditorium.

Last month, New Milford Hospital won approval to provide emergency angioplasty. That's good news. The additional service will save lives.

By approving New Milford's application, which was limited to emergency angioplasty, OHCA finally signaled that it recognizes Connecticut has been following a dangerous policy.

Until the New Milford approval, only the largest hospitals in Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven were allowed to provide advanced cardiac care.

That monopoly cost lives, but it was financially beneficial to those hospitals.

Permitting other hospitals to provide emergency angioplasty (to open a blocked artery) when a patient is experiencing a heart attack is certainly better than allowing Bridgeport, Hartford and New Haven hospitals to retain their monopoly on advanced cardiac care.

But residents of western Connecticut deserve better than that. They deserve to have a full range of advanced cardiac services available in their region of the state.

Danbury Hospital is prepared to expand its cardiac services, and patients in western Connecticut have the right to expect that the hospital will be permitted to do that - for emergency and elective angioplasty, as well as for open-heart surgery.

Anything less would be shortsighted - and, frankly, offensive.

It would be wrong to tell Danbury-area patients that they must still travel to Bridgeport, Hartford or New Haven for a heart emergency that isn't quite a heart attack.

Anyone who suggests that hasn't spent much time on Interstate 84, Route 25 or Route 34.

Danbury Hospital should be permitted to provide emergency angioplasty. Lives have been lost because that service is not available.

Danbury Hospital also should be permitted to provide elective angioplasty, which when needed by a patient isn't really elective.

And Danbury Hospital should be permitted to provide open-heart surgery, which should be available with a full angioplasty program.

Western Connecticut has had difficulty being heard over the years in Hartford.

At the hearing on New Milford's application, patients and community leaders spoke loud and clear about the need for equal access to advanced cardiac care.

Now it's time for western Connecticut to be heard again by supporting Danbury Hospital's proposal to provide advanced cardiac care.